SCHUNTER73
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2021
- Messages
- 221
I have been meaning to post this report for a while now, but between work and another trip, I just haven’t made the time to post my report. I had been looking at this hunt for a while and finally decided to get serious and talk to some outfitters. After some emails and a phone call, I settled on Mike McKinny at WTHO. I did this mainly because he had so much info about his various hunting ranches on his website and because his communication was fantastic. Me and a buddy settled on a date at the end of February for the ranch we were interested in near Alpine and sent him our deposits. A few weeks before the hunt, we got some texts from our guide giving us the lowdown on the property and what to expect.
We met him at the ranch house the evening before the hunt with great excitement. He cooked up a delicious steak and told us the plan for the morning, which was the same for every day. Get to a high point and glass. Lots of glassing. We saw a band relatively early that first morning, which included a beautiful ram. They got our wind from a half mile away and might still be running.. We tried to circle around them, but we could not turn them up again. Later in the day he spotted another very large band a long way away but no rams in the age class we were looking for. The next day was more of the same. Being from S.C., I really enjoyed the long range glassing component of the hunt, which is something we don’t normally have a reason to do. We saw some really nice bull elk, tons of muley does, hogs and javelinas.
Early the third morning we saw the group from the first morning and was able to belly crawl in close enough to set up for a shot. Unfortunately there were some ewes bedded that we did not see and they spooked as we were getting set, and took the group with them. Later that morning, we picked back up the same large band of aoudad as the day before, and saw several very nice rams on their periphery. We quickly took off on a long loop to get the wind right and get some advantageous terrain to make a stalk. We started our stalk and I happened to step on an VERY old horseshoe. I thought it might come in handy so I put it in my pack. Not 10 minutes later, my guide hit the deck and simultaneously set out the tripod like had done the exact same maneuver 1,000 times. There were 4 very nice rams looking straight at us from maybe 125 yards. He told me to shoot the lead one, but there was brush in the way. I needed him to take one more step, but he spun and ran. I pivoted to the second ram and squeezed the trigger just before he also turned to run. I saw his back end drop down and I sent another one towards him. It all happened so fast…we walked up a little bit over the rise and saw the 3 rams running away about 500 yards out. I looked to our right and my ram had only gone about 30 yards. The first shot ran right up into his vitals and my second shot must have missed. He was beautiful and better than I had hoped for. He had 14” bases, 31 7/8 on one side and 32 5/8 on the other. Maybe that horshoe paid off?
My buddy played cat and mouse with one the following afternoon, and after a good bit of chasing them around the rimrock, he made an awesome downhill shot on a beauty. I removed his face from the attached pic, since I didn’t ask if I could post his picture.
It was an awesome experience and one I intend to try and repeat. WTHO passed with flying colors. If you are considering a hunt with them, feel free to reach out.
We met him at the ranch house the evening before the hunt with great excitement. He cooked up a delicious steak and told us the plan for the morning, which was the same for every day. Get to a high point and glass. Lots of glassing. We saw a band relatively early that first morning, which included a beautiful ram. They got our wind from a half mile away and might still be running.. We tried to circle around them, but we could not turn them up again. Later in the day he spotted another very large band a long way away but no rams in the age class we were looking for. The next day was more of the same. Being from S.C., I really enjoyed the long range glassing component of the hunt, which is something we don’t normally have a reason to do. We saw some really nice bull elk, tons of muley does, hogs and javelinas.
Early the third morning we saw the group from the first morning and was able to belly crawl in close enough to set up for a shot. Unfortunately there were some ewes bedded that we did not see and they spooked as we were getting set, and took the group with them. Later that morning, we picked back up the same large band of aoudad as the day before, and saw several very nice rams on their periphery. We quickly took off on a long loop to get the wind right and get some advantageous terrain to make a stalk. We started our stalk and I happened to step on an VERY old horseshoe. I thought it might come in handy so I put it in my pack. Not 10 minutes later, my guide hit the deck and simultaneously set out the tripod like had done the exact same maneuver 1,000 times. There were 4 very nice rams looking straight at us from maybe 125 yards. He told me to shoot the lead one, but there was brush in the way. I needed him to take one more step, but he spun and ran. I pivoted to the second ram and squeezed the trigger just before he also turned to run. I saw his back end drop down and I sent another one towards him. It all happened so fast…we walked up a little bit over the rise and saw the 3 rams running away about 500 yards out. I looked to our right and my ram had only gone about 30 yards. The first shot ran right up into his vitals and my second shot must have missed. He was beautiful and better than I had hoped for. He had 14” bases, 31 7/8 on one side and 32 5/8 on the other. Maybe that horshoe paid off?
My buddy played cat and mouse with one the following afternoon, and after a good bit of chasing them around the rimrock, he made an awesome downhill shot on a beauty. I removed his face from the attached pic, since I didn’t ask if I could post his picture.
It was an awesome experience and one I intend to try and repeat. WTHO passed with flying colors. If you are considering a hunt with them, feel free to reach out.
